10 years at iTech-Ed Ltd

2014 is a bit of a special year here at iTech-Ed Ltd. It was our 10th anniversary on 1 February. I thought you might be interested in some of the changes that have taken place in that time.

Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days and it was difficult to easily get your hands on working bits of code and alternative solutions to common problems. VM Update followed in 1987, and then a whole range of mainframe-based publications. I was there at the very beginning and over the next 18 years edited most of them.

In 2004, Xephon sold the name and the publications to TCI publications. We set up iTech-Ed and we got the contract to edit around five or six of these Updates each month. My first activity, at one minute after midnight on 1 February 2004, was to upload the new issues to the Web site.

Over the next three and half years, iTech-Ed was responsible for encouraging technical people to write articles, editing and checking them to produce each edition every month, paying contributors, and sending the publications to the printers and putting them on the Web site. A small team of experts checked the text for punctuation and grammar as well as technical accuracy.

At the same time, iTech-Ed was carrying out consultancy work and producing technical documentation that was used in-house by a number of well-known companies. And we also started blogging at Mainframe Update using Blogger and Mainframe World on IT Toolbox

Towards the end of 2007, the Updates ceased publication, and the very first Virtual IMS user group meeting was held using Webex. The user group was immediately very popular and was sponsored by NEON Enterprise Software. That year also saw a growth in number of companies using our Web design and development services.

In 2008 the company took its first steps in offering advice on social media and how organizations could use it both to get their message out there and also to interact with customers in a positive way. It was a hard job back then. I also qualified as a Microsoft Office trainer – MOS MI – and ran a number of on-site training courses.

We picked up the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook – the de facto reference work for mainframers – and have worked with Arcati for many years producing this. The 2014 edition is now available from arcati.com/newyearbook14.

I was made an IBM Champion in 2009 and have been a champion every year since. As well as producing internal documentation for companies, I have had numerous articles published in a variety of Web-based and printed publications, such as Enterprise Tech Journal. In 2010 I attended Microsoft SharePoint Administrator and Developer training. And I started my regular blog on Destination z in July 2011, where I’ve written about Big Data , the Internet of Things, Deep Learning, and, of course, mainframes.

Also in 2011, Fundi Software took over as sponsor of the Virtual IMS user group and we then launched the Virtual CICS user group. Both of them enjoy regular meetings and newsletters and have around 400 members. I chair both of these user groups, and we use Citrix GoToMeeting to facilitate the webinars.

Over recent years, we’ve published guest blogs and I’ve ghost written blogs for many other blog sites. I’ve also contributed to IBM’s IOD blogs for the past couple of years. And I’ve created podcasts for a number of different companies.

So, here we are – 2014. 10 years in business and still very much in demand and looking forward to the future. If you want to get in contact with us, our Web site is itech-ed.com or you can e-mail trevor@itech-ed.com. You can Like us on Facebook at fb.com/itech-ed, follow me on Twitter at @t_eddolls, connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/teddolls, or follow us on Google+ at google.com/+TrevorEddolls.

Optimum performance from CICS

The July meeting of the Virtual CICS user group included a presentation entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”, and was presented by Satish Tanna, IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM.

Satish told the user group that he would be talking about using CICS Tools to help with CICS Threadsafe and consolidation projects.

Being threadsafe modernizes CICS applications and reduces TCB switching and CPU usage. It also increases the number of simultaneous CICS tasks that can run in a single CICS region, which reduces the need for vast numbers of CICS systems, and saves on the cost of administering those systems and other overheads. It also better exploits modern z-Series hardware.

Each TCB switch is approximately 2000 instructions. CICS TS V5.1, non-threadsafe DB2, MQ, and IMS transactions switch TCBs for each SQL statement or MQ command. So reducing instruction path length reduces costs and saves money for an organization.

CICS Tools can help to create threadsafe applications. Satish Tanna suggested that there are four stages in creating a threadsafe application. Step 1 is to identify applications that have a high number of TCB switches and identify programs in those transactions that are good threadsafe candidates.

Step 2 is to analyse programs to ensure the logic is threadsafe. Step 3 is to implement threadsafe programs. And the final step is to measure the results. CICS PA can be used for steps 1 and 4. CICS IA can be used for step 2. And CICS CM can be used for step 3.

CICS Performance Analyzer (PA) can analyse your CICS applications to determine which ones are good candidates for threadsafe. It looks at how many switches occurred, how much CPU time was used, delays, and how much they cost.

CICS Interdependency Analyzer (IA) can be used to determine the cause of a high number of Change TCB modes. It looks at what commands are issued by the transaction, how many commands are threadsafe, whether there are any DB2, MQ, or IMS commands, whether there are any Dynamic COBOL commands, whether there are any inhibiting commands, and which commands cause a TCB swap and where they are in the sequence of events.

Sites can also use CICS IA to verify that program logic is threadsafe. It looks for serialization techniques when accessing shared resources, enqueue and dequeue, compare and swap, reviews usage of ADDRESS CWA, EXTRACT EXIT, and GETMAIN SHARED. CICS will provide threadsafe access to its resources, eg files and queues.

CICS Configuration Manager (CM) Packaging, Transformation, and Migration facilities can be used to manage programs.

CICS PA can then be used to compare the results using the CICS PA Transaction Profile Report. This can quickly show a comparison between before and after the threadsafe project.

When it comes to consolidation, Satish Tanna told the user group that using CICS TS V5.1 scalability can consolidate CICS systems to simplify management. New and improved capabilities in CICS TS V5.1 provide greater single region scalability by doubling the MAXTASK limit to 2000. There’s greater usage of 64-bit storage and reduced usage of 24-bit storage. There’s greater application parallelism through threadsafe API and SPI extensions. There’s greater system parallelism through optimized TCB usage. There are Java performance improvements from 64-bit Java 7 support. And there’s greater access to 64-bit application storage when using Assembler programs.

CICS Deployment Assistant (DA) can discover CICS and CICSPlex system topology. CICS IA can analyse application resources and interdependencies. CICS CM can implement region consolidation, including CSD and CPSM BAS resources. CICS PA can measure performance.

CICS DA will discover Sysplex, CICS assets, and other address spaces. It can visualize assets and interconnections graphically. And it can export discovery data for reporting.

More information about the Virtual CICS user group can be found at http://fundi.com/virtualcics/.

BYOD growing in importance at mainframe sites

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 is now available for download from www.arcati.com/newyearbook13 – and it’s FREE. Each new Yearbook is always greeted with enthusiasm by mainframers everywhere because it is such a unique source of information. And each year, many people find the results of the user survey especially interesting. And this year, for the first time, we asked about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

Firstly, we wanted to know how important sites thought it was to make mainframe data available to other platforms. 82 percent of sites said that it was very important to the way they work at the moment. When it comes to how important the idea of people using their own devices is to access mainframes, 10 percent of sites said it was very important to the way they work now – but 18 percent are in the planning stages, and a further 12 percent expect to be in the future.

There’s been a huge growth in the use of social media in recent years, and we wondered whether mainframers found social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) useful for their work on the mainframe. A fifth (20 percent) said that they did, with eight percent not sure, and the rest not using it at all. Perhaps a surprisingly low figure, with IBM having Facebook pages dedicated to IMS, CICS, and DB2.

The survey also looked at IBM’s PureSystems – said to combine the flexibility of a general purpose system, the elasticity of cloud, and the simplicity of an appliance. They are integrated by design and come with built-in expertise. So, that’s the hype, but were survey respondents actually buying them? Only two percent of respondents said they were and, similarly, only two percent said they planned to. The survey also looked at the take up of business analytics (IBM’s Smarter Analytics). Here the take up was slightly higher, but again it makes disappointing reading for IBM, with four percent of sites saying they were currently using the technology and another four percent planning to.

Talk of Linux on mainframes has used the old joke of’ taking ten years to become an overnight success’ for a little while now. But this year, the survey found only 34 percent of respondents (down from last year’s 44 percent) said that they run Linux on the System z (with another 16 percent, up from last year’s 6 percent, at the planning stage). There are considerable cost and management benefits of consolidating distributed Linux workloads onto the mainframe, and IBM made the IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux) specialty processor available in 2001. Even so, running Linux on a mainframe seems now to be a mainstream technology.

Oracle and DB2 have been at loggerheads for a while now, but while the survey was thinking about Linux on mainframes, it queried how many sites were running Oracle under Linux on System z. Just eight percent of sites surveyed said that they currently run Oracle on zLinux, with another eight percent planning to.

The survey was completed by100 individuals between the 1 November 2012 and the 7 December 2012. Just under half (48 percent) were from North America and just over a third (36 percent) were from Europe, with 10 percent from the Asia/Pacific region, and eight percent from the Middle East/Africa.

48 percent of the companies have in excess of 10,000 employees worldwide. Below that, with 20 percent of respondents, are staff sizes of 1001-5000. With 12 percent of responses are staff sizes of 5001-1000. And with 10 percent each are staff sizes of 1 to 200 and 201 to 1000. 84 percent of our respondents were involved in running in-house data centres, with only six percent working in an outsourced operation.

So what are the main benefits for an organization of using a mainframe over other platforms? 88 percent of respondents highlighted the benefit of availability, with 74percent identifying security as a benefit. Scalability and manageability came next with scores of 68 and 66 percent respectively.

So why isn’t everyone using a mainframe? 82 percent thought mainframes are too expensive (or appear to be). 58 percent thought that there are cultural barriers between mainframers and other IT professionals. 24 percent identified concerns about future availability/support for mainframe applications, 18 percent said difficulty in obtaining or retaining the necessary skills, and 12 percent thought mainframes are too complex (or appear to be). Sadly, only two percent thought there were no obstacles to mainframe acceptance.

Full details of all the questions and responses can be found in the user survey section of the Yearbook. It’s well worth a read.

The Yearbook can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software AG, Software Diversified Services (SDS), and William Data Systems.
 

What’s really going on?

One of the problems with being a mainframer these days is finding out what’s going on at other sites and being able to compare your experiences with other people’s. There used to be rooms full of mainframe staff, and regular turnover meant that new ideas were easily examined. Apart from Google, nowadays you can keep in the loop by joining a user group (like the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups that don’t require you to be out of the office to attend meetings), going to conferences (you’ve just missed IOD, but Guide Share Europe takes place next week), or you can read survey results.

Or there’s survey results. And as we’re coming to the end of another year, surveys seem to be happening more frequently.

BMC Software recently published a survey from their AsiaPacific area. They found there was a growth in processor engines, which was driven by transaction processing requirements. And driving that is users wanting to have data available to them at any time and anywhere – particularly users with mobile devices. BMC also found that some of the growth could be attributed to legacy application development and some to newer applications where the mainframe provides the back-end delivery of that application.

Respondents liked mainframes for security and data integrity reasons, as well as its centralized manageability. One result that won’t surprise anyone who’s investigated the option was that the cost of moving away from the mainframe is very high!

CA Technologies has published a survey of 800 IT and business leaders. They found that IT and business leaders often have two different views on innovation, with IT respondents suggesting that they are more likely to position themselves as driving innovation, being an expert on innovation, and having the required skills to foster innovation. Business executives identified IT’s shortcomings in regard to its ability to support and drive innovation and gave themselves credit for innovation.

With results that could have been published any time up to the 1990s, the survey found large gaps can be found in rating IT’s knowledge of the business, IT’s business and communications skills, and overall speed and agility. I thought this division had healed over many years ago, but maybe the pendulum is swinging back the other way? Perhaps the paucity of IT staff makes it harder for them to get to meetings and interact with other execs? Or maybe the CIO (Chief Information Officer) is disappearing from organizations and IT is being relegated into a silo all over again?

Not surprisingly, the survey found common frustrations such as organizations’ lack of agility, and budget and staff resource shortages. Interestingly, new IT initiatives include mobile and business intelligence/analytics. Organizations reporting high levels of innovation are also planning investments in cloud, security management, business analytics, service management, and virtualization.

If you want to have your say about what’s happening at your site, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook is conducting a user survey now. You can find the survey at www.arcati.com/usersurvey13.

If you’re interested in the Virtual IMS or CICS user groups, you can find them at www.fundi.com/virtualims/ and www.fundi.com/virtualcics/ respectively. More information about the GSE conference is at www.gse.org.uk/tyc/.

More data stored off mainframes – user survey finding

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2012 is now available for download from www.arcati.com/newyearbook12 – and it’s FREE. Each new Yearbook is always greeted with enthusiasm by mainframers everywhere because it is such a unique source of information. And each year, many people find the results of the user survey especially interesting. And this year, for the very first time, survey respondents indicated that, at their sites, more data was stored off mainframes than on.

This surprising result came from the 100 respondents who completed the survey on the Arcati Web site   between 1 November and 2 December 2011. 40% were from Europe and 50% from North America, with 10% from the rest of the world.

46% of the respondents worked in companies with upwards of 10,000 employees worldwide, while 10% of respondents had 0-200 staff, 6% had 201-1000, 28% had 1001 to 5000, and 10% had 5001-10,000 staff. In terms of MIPS, 34% of respondents had fewer than 1000 MIPS installed, 40% fell into the mid-sized category between 1000 and 10,000 MIPS, and 26% were at the high end.

Looking at MIPS growth produced some interesting results. Larger, more mature businesses (above 10,000 MIPS) were almost all experiencing some growth, but predominantly in 0 to 10% per year category. Sites in the 1000-10,000 MIPS range were showing a range of results with some sites suggesting a decline while others predicted growth of up to 50%. Sites below 1000 MIPS were experiencing a more complex future, with most expecting a small growth, but almost as many expecting no growth or negative growth (a business-speak euphemism for decline). The mainframe market does appear to be quite fragmented with competitive pressures at the lower end of the mainframe market, and some respondents commented about lack of understanding amongst management about the value of mainframe computing.

It was interesting to see that 6% of respondents had the zEnterprise z114s, with 19% having the z196s models installed. I expect that future surveys we’ll ask how sites are making use of the extra features on these models. Previous surveys have shown that there is a willingness amongst mainframes (especially larger ones) to purchase new models as they become available. In order to benefit from the new features

The big talking point during 2011 was cloud computing and whether mainframers really have been doing it since the 1960s and the impact of offering software (and anything else) as a service. The survey asked whether respondents currently used their mainframe for cloud computing. Just 12% (up from last year’s 2%) of respondents said they did. 34% said they didn’t, and the rest weren’t sure. It’s still early days for a cloud computing initiative to move off the PowerPoint slides and into the business environment, so the survey asked whether respondents were planning to adopt cloud computing as a strategy. 40% said they weren’t at present. Just 18% thought some mainframe applications would be cloud-enabled in the future. It will be interesting to follow these figures in future surveys.

The survey asked respondents which specialty processors (IFL, zIIP, and zAAP) they had. 16% of sites had all three (up from last year’s value of 6%) and a further 20% of sites had two of the three specialty processors (down from last year’s 28%). More sites had zIIP processors (48%) than any other. 36% had IFL processors, and 30% had zAAP specialty processors. 28% of sites don’t have a specialty processor installed.

The survey inquired about what proportion of enterprise data resides on the mainframe and what on other platforms. This produced, for the first year ever, the surprising result that more than half of the respondents use other platforms to manage the lion’s share of their corporate data. 44 percent of sites surveyed have more data on their mainframes, whereas 56 percent of the sites surveyed have more data stored on other platforms. Unfortunately, the survey was unable to drill down to find out why, but we can speculate that it may simply be the growth of data associated with the non-mainframe side of the business. It could be a result of the quantity of e-mails that organizations store for their staff. It could be that non-mainframe data is less well managed and ‘spreads’ into larger data sizes. Perhaps non-mainframe databases are less space efficient. Or maybe, people just create and save Excel spreadsheets and Word documents on Windows servers, where they wouldn’t keep equivalent files on mainframes. Or perhaps sites move their mainframe archive data off the mainframe, but still have it available online on, for example, a Linux distributed system. I’d be interested to hear yiour views on this.

The comments in the survey identified management ignorance of the power and benefits of using a mainframe. This is now a perennial reason given for the decline in mainframe computing within organizations. But cost was also highlighted as a factor mitigating against the successful growth of mainframe computing. One respondent suggested, “software costs are sinking the mainframe”.

Anyway, full details of the responses to many other questions can be found in the user survey section of the Yearbook. It’s well worth a read.

The Yearbook can only be free to mainframers because of the support given by sponsors. This year’s sponsors were: CA Technologies, Serena Software, Software AG, Software Diversified Services (SDS), Type80 Security Software, and William Data Systems.

CA provides May Mainframe Madness

Last week I was talking about the benefits of virtual user group like the Virtual IMS group (at www.fundi.com/virtualims) and the Virtual CICS group (at www.fundi.com/virtualcics). I was suggesting that attending this kind of group meant you didn’t need budgeting approval for time away from the office (meals, hotel rooms, travel, etc) and so made life easier for busy mainframe professionals. CA has taken this idea one step further – they’re devoting the whole May to mainframes, and doing it all virtually!

Details of CA’s May Mainframe Madness can be found at www.ca.com/content/page/May-Mainframe-Madness-2011.aspx.

CA describes it as the largest mainframe-focused event of its kind. They also say it’s the, “largest virtual Mainframe trade show in the world”. The information on the Web page currentlys says: “Every day brings new insights, tools and strategies to help you understand and maximize the strength and relevance of 21st century mainframe solutions. There are more than 100 valuable sessions over every business day in May, so you won’t want to miss a thing! Learn what’s new and find out how mainframe solutions from CA Technologies are leveraging Mainframe 2.0, CA’s innovative strategy to change the way the mainframe is managed forever.”

You can register now for the event at www.ca.com/mmm – which redirects to a registration page. CA claims that registration takes only 90 seconds, and go on to say: “The event will feature keynote presentations on everything from debugging to new backup and recovery techniques and 150+ virtual sessions and demos, as well as technical sessions, customer case studies, on-demand education materials, and various mainframe exhibits for approximately 7,500 professionals around the world.”

So why am I telling you about CA’s event in May? Don’t they have their own PR people who get paid to do it? Well, the reason I’m mentioning it is because I’ve been invited to take part, along with long-time friend, colleague, and iTech-Ed Associate, Mark Lillycrop, who’s CEO of Arcati Ltd – the people who produce the much-valued Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, which is freely available for download from www.arcati.com/newyearbook11. Mark and I will be available in what CA calls the Networking Lounge. This is a place where people can take part in scheduled chats as well as watch videos and have unscheduled chats with other attendees.

Other areas in CA’s virtual mainframe extravaganza are the Auditorium, the Job Role Resource Center, and the Exhibit Hall.

Mark and I haven’t finalized a time and date for this event, nor have we agreed on the topics we will be chatting about – but I’m sure it will be great fun and very informative. I’m also sure that I’ll let you have the exact details via this blog, Facebook, or Twitter in plenty of time. And I look forward to meeting you then and hearing your questions.

And if you’re looking for a virtual event to attend, then next Tuesday (12 April) at 10:30 CDT, Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software, will be talking to the Virtual IMS user group. The title of his presentation is: “Simplify and improve database administration by leveraging your storage system”. You can find out more about the event including how to register at www.fundi.com/virtualims.

New virtual CICS user group

How many times have you come away from a conference or a presentation and thought wow, that was really useful? Perhaps one small nugget of information from the speaker has opened a door for further development of work at your site. And most technical presentations are full of gems of information – both for the novice user and those more technically experienced.

But how often have you had to fight to justify attending meetings with other professionals? How often have you struggled to build a business case showing that a particular event or conference really will pay back more than it costs in your time off work, the cost of staff to cover your absence, travel costs, subsistence allowance, and hotel fees?

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to attend a highly professional technically-oriented seminar or presentation without having to leave your company’s offices – without, perhaps, even having to leave your desk?

And wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a single place where you could go and find out a little bit about the latest CICS product announcements, including a link to get more information if you wanted it? How cool would it be if there was a list of tools that ran on CICS with a brief summary of what each product did? And what about some way of finding out whenever someone published a new article about using CICS in IBM Systems Magazine or zJournal, or wherever – wouldn’t that be useful?

Well, the great news is that the all-new Virtual CICS user group at www.fundi.com/virtualcics provides all that and more. On the Web site you’ll find a list of useful applications that enhance CICS, and a list of CICS service providers. You’ll also find the latest product announcements and articles.

In addition, every other month (that’s six times a year) there will be a webinar. Using Citrix GoToMeeting, you’ll be able to stay at your desk and interact with other members of the user group and listen to the latest presentation by an acknowledged CICS expert. In the months when there isn’t a webinar, there will be a newsletter sent to all members keeping them up-to-date with the latest news.

And if you’re wondering how much this kind of high-quality service is likely to cost you, the answer is nothing – not a penny! Membership of the user group is free – you just need to sign up at www.fundi.com/virtualcics/register.htm. And the webinars are completely free to members. We’ll e-mail you a link about a fortnight before the webinar with all the information you need.

So, if you’re a CICS professional, this is the user group specifically tailored for you.

Why not join right now?

You may also be interested to know that the Virtual IMS user group has been running since November 2007. You can find out more about that at www.fundi.com/virtualIMS.

The importance of mainframe performance

It’s so easy to forget, or just take it as read, that mainframes have been able to successfully run with five nines availability for well over a decade. What that means is achieving 99.999% of scheduled uptime. In other words, it means that unscheduled downtime is less than five and half minutes in a year! Now that kind of amazing performance is something that boxes running other operating systems can only dream of. Some are working towards that level of availability, but others (you know who I’m thinking of here) aren’t even close.

But I wasn’t thinking about performance in that sense. We just take it for granted the operating system is going to be always working. What I was thinking about was the performance of the major subsystems running under z/OS. It’s very important to take steps to ensure that CICS or IMS are performing optimally. Monitoring software can be installed that will identify when preset thresholds are reached. They help identify bottlenecks and then the appropriate action can be taken to resolve them. This is the kind of stuff systems programmers have been working away at for years. They’ve been using faster processors, faster I/O, more efficiently-coded transactions, until every component is working as well as it can.

In previous blogs, we’ve talked about monitoring software that can arrange for alerts to be sent to designated staff as text messages or e-mails – allowing them to access the nearest iPad or laptop and take steps to resolve the new problem.

As well as CICS and IMS, there are monitors for DB2, WebSphere, and z/OS itself. These can all be integrated and produce wonderful moving graphs or other displays that allow users to tell at a glance whether everything is OK or whether a slight tweak to the subsystem is required. In addition, we’ve had software that learns how to maintain high performance and make appropriate changes on-the-fly, without any human intervention.

But the problem that many sites now face is what they can do if, for example, IMS users are reporting slow response times, but the problem appears to be coming from outside the IMS subsystem rather than from inside it. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. The challenge facing systems programmers in this situation is to correlate performance data in IMS with activities in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time.

One new solution is Transaction Analysis Workbench, which is an IMS tool. If you’re interested in how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem, you’ll be interested in the webinar from the Virtual IMS user group this week.

The Virtual IMS user group runs free webinars every other month. During the webinar, a technical expert shares their hard-won knowledge with the rest of the group. The webinars use Citrix GoToMeeting, which means you don’t have to face the hard task of convincing your company to fund your user group experience – you just sit down at your laptop and log in.

Anyone wishing to join the webinar needs to join the user group – which is also free. The next meeting is at 10:30 Central Standard Time on Tuesday 8 February. The user group’s Web site (where you can join) is at www.fundi.com/virtualims.

Virtual IMS user group

With so much of IBM’s software now in its 40s, it’s no wonder that using it requires quite a lot of knowledge. And many people have developed a whole range of nifty tips and tricks that they can use when things go wrong or to help make things work better. That’s where user groups come in. A user group provides an opportunity for people to share their hints and tips with others, and, in return, learn some tried-and-tested new ones.

One problem that managers sometimes have with staff going to user group meetings is that they are unavailable at work should there be a problem. In addition, there is often a cost associated with going to meetings – travel costs, meals, parking, subsistence, etc. That’s where the Virtual IMS user group scores. Not only do members get all the benefits of user group membership, but there’s no need for them to leave the office – they just join the meeting through their computer (hence the ‘virtual’ part of the name).

And the Virtual IMS user group is going to be busy in 2011. If you’re not already a member and you’d like to be, then go to www.fundi.com/virtualims and sign up. User group membership is FREE. This year there is an exciting programme of presentations at the virtual meetings – using GoToMeeting – starting on 8 February at 10:30 CDT with a presentation by Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Solving the problem when IMS isn’t the cause”.

Jim describes the presentation like this: “Users might report slow response times from IMS, but you suspect that other systems are responsible. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. Your challenge is to correlate performance data in IMS with activity in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time. In this session, we discuss how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem.

On 12 April the user group meeting includes a presentation from Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software. His presentation is entitled: “Simplify and improving database administration by leveraging your storage system”. Ron is a database professional with over 30 years of related experience. He has developed relational database software, implemented large database systems, conducted database design reviews, and consulted with companies around the world on various aspects of relational database technology, database management tools, and integrated data management solutions.

On 14 June Ronnie Parker from Logic Online talks about: “The ripple effect of making changes”. The session describes storage-aware data management tools. These tools integrate storage-based fast-replication facilities with database management systems to provide fast and non-disruptive IMS and DB2 backup and cloning solutions. Storage-aware data management tools improve database backup, recovery, and cloning solutions by using storage-based fast-replication facilities to copy data; saving time and host CPU and I/O resources. The session explores how storage-based fast-replication facilities offered by IBM, EMC, and Hitachi storage systems can be used to backup, recover, clone, and refresh IMS and DB2 systems.

And there will be more great sessions in the second half of the year.

The user group is very grateful to Fundi Software for stepping in to sponsor the group (in much the same way that BMC sponsors the IMS Listserv at http://imslistserv.bmc.com/scripts/wa-BMC.exe?LOGON). Fundi Software is an Australian software product development company. Established in 1982, Fundi is today one of the leading providers of tools for IMS and CICS systems. Taken from the Zulu language, Fundi means “expert”.

The Virtual IMS user group is an independently-operated vendor-neutral group run by and for the IMS user community. The Web site contains an up-to-date list of IMS-related software that can be used with IMS; IMS news (information about new IMS products and new versions of existing products); a list of IMS consultant (let me know if your company needs to be added to the list); links to recent IMS articles that are available on the Internet; and links to IMS resources – in fact, it’s a one-stop shop for IMS professionals and other people interested in IBM’s Information Management System.

Find out more at www.fundi.com/virtualims.

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2011

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook has been the de facto reference work for IT professionals working with z/OS (and its forerunner) systems since 2005. It includes an annual user survey, an up-to-date directory of vendors and consultants, a media guide, a strategy section with papers on mainframe trends and directions, a glossary of terminology, and a technical specification section. Each year, the Yearbook is downloaded by around 15,000 mainframe professionals. The current issue is still available at www.arcati.com/newyearbook10.

Very shortly, many of you will receive an e-mail informing you that Mark Lillycrop and I have started work on the 2011 edition of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. If you don’t get an e-mail from me about it, then e-mail trevor@itech-ed.com and I will add you to our mailing list.

We’re hoping that mainframe professionals will be willing to complete the annual user survey, which will shortly be up and running at www.arcati.com/usersurvey11. The more users who fill it in, the more accurate and therefore useful the survey report will be. All respondents before Friday 3 December will receive a PDF copy of the survey results on publication. The identity and company information of all respondents is treated in confidence and will never be divulged to third parties. If you go to user group meetings, or just hang out with mainframers from other sites, please pass on the word about this survey. We’re hoping that this year’s user survey will be the most comprehensive survey ever. Current estimates suggest that there are somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 companies using mainframes spread over 10,000 sites.

Anyone reading this who works for a vendor, consultant, or service provider, can ensure their company gets a free entry in the vendor directory section by completing the form at www.arcati.com/vendorentry. This form can also be used to amend last year’s entry.

As in previous years, there is the opportunity for organizations to sponsor the Yearbook or take out a half page advertisement. Half-page adverts (5.5in x 8in max landscape) cost $650 (UK£390). Sponsors get a full-page advert (11in x 8in) in the Yearbook; inclusion of a corporate paper in the Mainframe Strategy section of the Yearbook; a logo/link on the Yearbook download page on the Arcati Web site; and a brief text ad in the Yearbook publicity e-mails sent to users. Price $1900 (UK£990).

To put that cost into perspective, for every dollar you spend on an advert you reach around 25 mainframe professionals.

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2011 will be freely available for download early in January next year.

Virtual IMS Connection user group - under threat

Virtual IMS Connection is a vendor-neutral, independently-operated, virtual user group for IMS (IBM's Information Management System) professionals. It can currently be found at www.virtualims.com. It was launched at the beginning of November 2007.

Virtual user group meetings take place every other month and a guest speaker gives a presentation relevant to the IMS user community. The user group meetings last a little over an hour in total. Participation in meetings is free to members. The Virtual IMS Connection user group is also free to join.

User group members also get a bi-monthly newsletter. You can see the flip-book version here and the PDF version here.

The Web site contains details of future meetings, information about IMS-related articles (published elsewhere on the Web) and events, a list of IMS tools (software - the listing is free to vendors) and services, a list of IMS consultants, and a job bank (with resumes - CVs - and job opportunities).

New IMS products and new versions of existing products are always included in the News page. There's a link to the IMS-L listserv, where IMS professionals can ask questions and share information.

Members can access PDF versions of presentations and PDF versions of newsletters.

The idea was to create a one-stop shop for IMS professionals, where individuals using IBM’s IMS hierarchical database and transaction processing systems could exchange information, learn new techniques, and advance their skills with the product.

Obviously, there are sponsorship opportunities available to vendors of IMS-related products to help fund this work. Vendors can place banner adverts, etc. However, since its inception, NEON Enterprise Software has provided Web hosting for the site, and funded the WebEx technology that we have used to make the regular webinars possible, as well as meeting other costs. This is now coming to an end, and the Virtual IMS Connection user group is looking for a new home.

If your organization might be able to help keep this important user group running, please contact me on trevor@itech-ed.com.

You can also find the user group on Twitter at twitter.com/VirtualIMS.
You can become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#/pages/Virtual-IMS-Connection-user-group/282385116069.

Let's hope that the Virtual IMS Connection user group can continue to share ideas, information, and skills into the future.

Mainframe Workbench from Compuware

Compuware are excited about their "ALL NEW Compuware Mainframe Workbench". They tell me the product is a modernized open development environment that introduces a new graphical user interface for managing mainframe application development activities currently performed in the character-based TSO/ISPF environment. It provides a common framework and single launch-point from which to initiate Compuware's mainframe products. And if your site has other products installed then don't worry, because it's extensible to support other development tooling as well.

Compuware assure me that the look-and-feel of the Workbench is familiar to users accustomed to developing in a GUI, and enables users to interact with mainframes in an intuitive, standardized, and familiar environment. Workbench makes use of Eclipse.

It seems that this initial release consists of a framework (Compuware Workbench 3.0) and modernized user interfaces for Compuware's Abend-AID, Xpediter, and File-AID. It provides:

• Mainframe fault diagnosis.
• Application data browse and edit: sequential, indexed, VSAM, DB2, and IMS (to be phased in during this year).
• Mainframe-hosted COBOL, PL/I, C Language, and HLASM debugging.

The Mainframe Workbench provides a framework that delivers additional ISPF-like functionality, including:

• Source code edit (powered by SlickEdit).
• Invocation of mainframe compiler
• JES functions: job submission, review, print, purge.
• Dataset management, ie allocation, compression, deletion.

Full details are here: www.compuware.com/solutions/mainframe-workbench.asp.

I guess the big focus of attention this coming week is the new zWow (or is that z11, zNext, etc) mainframe announcement from IBM. More on that next week!

Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2010 user survey

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2010 has been available for download free from www.arcati.com/newyearbook10 for just over a week. Each new Yearbook is always greeted with enthusiasm by mainframers everywhere, and, not too surprisingly, there were over 2500 downloads on the first two days the 2010 edition was available. The Yearbook is always interesting, but especially interesting each year are the results of the user survey.

Respondents all completed a survey on the Arcati site between the 2 November 2009 and the 4 December 2009. 30% were from Europe and 46% from North America, with 24% from the rest of the world.

42% of the respondents worked in companies with upwards of 10,000 employees worldwide, while 19% had 1001 to 5000 staff. 16% of respondents had 0-200 staff and 12% had 5001-10,000. In terms of MIPS 45% of respondents had fewer than 1000 MIPS installed, 26% fell into the mid-sized category between 1000 and 10,000 MIPS, and 29% were at the high end.

Looking at MIPS growth produced some interesting results. Larger, more mature businesses (above 10,000 MIPS) were mostly experiencing some growth, but some growing by more than 50%. Sites in the 1000-10,000 MIPS range were typically experiencing growth of less than 10%. Sites below 1000 MIPS were also generally experiencing growth of less than 10%. The mainframe market does appear to be quite fragmented with competitive pressures at the lower end of the mainframe market.

With the environment and environmental issues getting so much coverage in the media these days, the survey asked whether IBM's recent green initiatives on things like power consumption and cooling had made the mainframe more or less attractive. Nearly three-quarters (72% - up from last year's 62%) said that IBM's green initiatives made no difference at all. One site said that the initiative made the mainframe less attractive. 19% felt it made the mainframe a little more attractive, and 7% felt it made the mainframe a lot more attractive. Clearly "greenness" isn't much of a selling point for mainframes.

With all the suing and counter-suing going on between IBM and NEON Enterprise Software over NEON's specialty processor software, the survey asked which specialty processors sites had. 37% of respondents had not yet activated or installed a specialty processor, 12% of sites had all three (IFL, zIIP, and zAAP), and a further 12% had two of the three specialty processors. More sites had zIIP processors (39%) than any other.

As usual, respondents were unhappy with costs. One commented: "The mainframe is too expensive (and perceived as being even more so). Costs for legacy applications must come down, and third-party software must support the mainframe." Another suggested: "The other platform costs may be increasing faster than mainframes but the starting point is drastically lower."

As always, there are wonderful nuggets of information in the survey.

The Yearbook can only be free to mainframers because of the support given by sponsors. This year's sponsors were CA, DataKinetics, OpenMainframe.org, Progress:DataDirect, and Software Diversified Services (SDS).